


Bad Hair Days

by s1lverwren



Series: 12 days of christmas [10]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, ambassador prentiss is a bad mother, emily is traumatized but that doesn't stop her, purely a platonic fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:15:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28055238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/s1lverwren/pseuds/s1lverwren
Summary: Jordan and Prentiss have a talk about Emily's childhood.
Relationships: Emily Prentiss & Jordan Todd
Series: 12 days of christmas [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2045071
Kudos: 11





	Bad Hair Days

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr saw it first. jordan todd needs more love. talks about a bau case, so if something of that caliber is triggering for you, please do not read!

“I’m getting deja vú to the Viper case,” Emily said, wiggling her eyebrows at the memory.

Jordan scoffed as she moved to stand behind the other woman. “I actually would have rather not remembered that right now, thanks.”

She didn’t need to see Emily’s smile to know it was there. A smile of her own spread across her face as she laid out a natural red wig and a pile of pins on the table next to them. 

“It kind of sucks that you have to be the one to go undercover. We don’t know how this guy will react, this could be super dangerous.”

Emily shifted in her seat uncomfortably. “I’ll be fine. I just hope that wig,” she nodded her head to the mentioned article, “isn’t horribly uncomfortable.”

“Well, it was the only one I could find on such a short notice,” Jordan amended as if she had done something wrong.

Emily turned in her seat to look into Todd’s eyes. “I’m not blaming you. You don’t have to worry about every move of yours, you are a very competent agent. Act like it!”

Grateful eyes shined back at her, and she turned back around. Even though Hotch had confirmed Jordan’s place on the team, she had confided in Prentiss that it still felt like she couldn’t do anything right and, although it was very high stress, she preferred her counter-terrorism position.

As Jordan prepped the necessary tools, Emily looked over the details of the case displayed in a clean manila folder one more time.

A series of murders were ongoing in the small town of Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Five white women had been found in public places on a Sunday morning, a .357 Magnum bullet embedded in her forehead. Their heads and eyebrows had been completely shaved.

It was discovered that all five women were redheads, as well as foreigners to the town. They had all been last seen in one of the small bars in the town on a Saturday evening. They profiled that the unsub was a white male, late-20s to early-30s, the same age as his victims. 

The team believed that he was going after these women because he had felt wronged by a prominent woman in his life with similar characteristics as them, a girlfriend or wife who was not originally from Stockbridge. 

Which is why Emily was sitting in a dirty police locker room, Jordan prepping a costume wig. Because Stockbridge was a small town, everyone knows everyone. Anyone they hired or used from the precinct would be recognized immediately, leaving only Emily as a possible candidate.

“Ready?” Todd asked from over Emily’s shoulder. She received a nod and reached nimble fingers out to Emily’s hair with one hand and a brush in the other.

The dingy overhanging lights reflected in Prentiss’s hair as Jordan ran the bristles of the brush through it. They were quiet, and the loud sounds of the chaos in the bullpen floated through the shut door.

“This is nice,” Todd mused, as she ran her fingers through the raven hair, making sure there were no knots for them to get caught on. “I only have a brother, so I never got to do anyone’s hair when I was growing up.”

“What about your mom?”

Jordan laughed, a bright sound in the otherwise gloomy room. “No, no. You did not come near my mother’s hair unless you had a death wish.”

Emily shut the case file and placed it in her lap and also laughed. “Then how do you know what you’re doing?”

Jordan placed the brush down, deciding that it was brushed enough. She plucked a bobby pin from the pile and pried it open. “I _can_ braid, it just took me forever to perfect because I only had my own hair to practice on.”

“Fair enough.”

Deft fingers flew through Emily’s hair, twisting the strands into a beautiful braid on top of her head. Emily rolled her neck around and tapped her foot on the floor. 

“Did I hurt you?” she asked, pausing her braiding.

Emily shook her head. “No, you’re okay, I just get twitchy sometimes.”

“I’ve never seen you ‘twitchy,’” Jordan said, suspiciously, but continued with her braiding.

They fell into silence once again, before Jordan was forced to stop again, placing her hands on Emily’s shoulders. The bouncing of Emily’s leg was shaking the whole chair.

“Prentiss! Stop moving, and let me braid your hair!”

The bouncing ceased, and Emily softly told her sorry. Jordan pinned one of the braids she will have to make to the top of Emily’s head. 

“I mean, I’m not a profiler, but you clearly don’t like the braiding part. Why?” Jordan asked as she opened the mouth of more pins. “You were fine with the brushing.”

Emily didn’t answer for a little bit, going back and forth between giving Todd an acceptable answer or the real answer. 

“Um, well, you remember how I told you my mom was an ambassador, so that meant I traveled a lot as a kid.”

“Mhm,” Jordan agreed through a mouthful of pins.

Emily nodded curtly before remembering that she wasn’t supposed to be moving. “Well, having a young girl like me was apparently good for business, so she’d take me to some meetings to show how ‘approachable’ and ‘kind’ and good for them she was, because she could raise this _wonderful_ child.” She made bitter air quotes with her index and middle fingers as she spoke.

“My hair always had to be braided when I met these guys. I don’t know.”

Jordan told her to lean her head to the side gently, and she did. 

“I felt like I was being used, which I absolutely was, by the way. Eventually, I just started associating braiding my hair with the horrible feelings of those meetings. So if I need to change my appearance for...whatever reason, I just dye my hair.” Her voice drifted off, but she didn’t seem to notice that Jordan had continued braiding her hair.

Todd grimaced although Prentiss couldn’t see her. “That’s awful. I’m sorry that happened to you.”

“It’s okay. I had a strange, strange childhood. It’s just a bunch of tiny stuff like braiding my hair that reminds me of it,” Emily said, in a voice far too nonchalant to be real. She switched which leg was on top, and then quickly shifted from that to sitting cross-legged. 

Todd was quiet, enough of a profiler to sense that the conversation was making Emily uncomfortable. She finished the final two braids in silence without Emily, who had been sucked into a world of her own, moving too much.

“Okay! That’s all!” she exclaimed, shaking the other woman from her stupor. “You have super thin hair so that did not take as long as we thought it would.”

She handed a thin piece of fabric to Emily, letting her put the wig cap on herself. Grabbing the mess of red hair lying on the table, she showed Prentiss where and how to pin the garment on. 

While Emily was doing as she was directed- with far more struggle than she would have liked- she was looking at Jordan in a new light. “How do you know so much about how to put on a wig?”

“I used to do theatre in high school,” Todd smiled, shifting the wig so it wasn’t lopsided. “And this is just one of those skills you don’t lose, I guess.”

Emily nodded. “Apparently. You should talk to Hotch about that.” She flipped her head over, bright red hair cascading over her shoulders. “He did theatre for a little bit when he was in high school.”

“Really?” Jordan was reading a message from her phone and hadn’t looked at the finished product yet. “Honestly, I cannot picture Hotch as a high schooler.”

“I wouldn’t be able to either if I hadn’t seen actual pictures. What?” she stopped herself, as Todd had started cackling when she looked up from her cell.

“Nothing,” Todd said through laughter, waving a hand in the air and covering her mouth.

Emily stared at her, bewildered, and Todd handed her a mirror, nearing tears at this point. Emily’s lips formed a small ‘o’ as she took in her appearance. 

“Ahh, I see. Red is not my color. Noted.”

“It’s not horrible…” Jordan said, but she didn’t sound very serious about it. 

Not even bothering warranting that with a response, Emily stood up from her chair and walked out of the room, a light smile plastered on her face. Still giggling, Jordan collected everything into a bag and slung it over her shoulder. The sound of laughter from the team came through the door Prentiss had left open, and Jordan smiled as she came out to greet them.


End file.
